· The production plays at the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 3 – 27 August.

Traverse 2, Traverse Theatre3 – 27 AugustPress Night 4 August, 4pm

The Bush Theatre is thrilled to share its production of NASSIM written by Nassim Soleimanpour (WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT) and directed by Bush Theatre Associate Director Omar Elerian (One Cold Dark Night, Islands) at the Traverse Theatre for a full run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer.

Dear performer. I want to show you something. Did you know, in Farsi my name is written like this: ‘.ROUPNAMIELOS MISSAN si eman yM’

No rehearsals. No preparation. Just a sealed envelope and an actor reading a script for the first time.

For each performance across the run, a different cultural figure will join Nassim on stage to perform his new work. Performers over the first 10 performances are Desiree Burch, Phil Burgers (Dr Brown), Monica Dolan, Chris Goode, David Grieg, Zinnie Harris, Charlotte Josephine, Anna Morris, Mark Thomas and Chris Thorpe.

Later in the run Phill Jupitus, Inua Ellams, Seiriol Davies, Chris Thorpe, Josie Long, Richard Gadd, Nir Paldi, Rachel Mars, Brian Ferguson, George Mann and Ursula Martinez are among the well known faces to sign up.

The actor taking part will be revealed the day before their performance on Twitter– search #NassimThePlay to be the first to find out who’s performing next.

Nassim Soleimanpour’s audacious theatrical experiment explores the power of language to unite us in unknown, uncertain times.NASSIM is the Iranian playwright’s second play to receive its UK Premiere at the Bush Theatre. The first, BLANK, was produced as part of the Bush Theatre’s annual new writing festival, RADAR, in 2015. This will be the Bush Theatre’s first production to transfer to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe since Simon Stephens’ Sea Wall in 2009.

NASSIM follows Soleimanpour’s globally acclaimed WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT, which has beentranslated into 15 different languages and performed over 1000 times by some of the biggest names in theatre and film including Sinead Cusack, Ken Loach and Whoopi Goldberg. It had already been performed hundreds of times in more than a dozen languages by 2013 when Soleimanpour was first permitted to travel outside his native Tehran.

NASSIM – a Bush Theatre commission - is written by Nassim Soleimanpour, directed by Omar Elerian and designed by Rhys Jarman. Lighting design is by Rajiv Pattani with sound design by James Swadlo.

Nassim Soleimanpour (playwright and performer) is an independent multidisciplinary theatre maker best known for his multi award-winning play White Rabbit Red Rabbit. Nassim’s play BLANK premiered in the UK at the Bush Theatre’s RADAR festival in 2015, also playing in Amsterdam and Utrecht with further performances all over the world including in Argentina, Australia and India. Further plays include Blind Hamlet which premiered at LIFT Festival 2014 prior to a UK tour and productions in Bucharest and Copenhagen. Nassim now lives in Berlin and has been commissioned to write a new play for Teater Momentum (Denmark).

Omar Elerian (director) is Associate Director at the Bush Theatre where he directed One Cold Dark Night by Nancy Harris and Islands by Caroline Horton. He also co-directed the Olivier nominated You’re Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy at the Bush Theatre alongside Daniel Goldman. He was also Associate Director on The Royale by Marco Ramirez, Perseverance Drive by Robin Soans and Chalet Lines by Lee Mattinson. Other directing credits include acclaimed site-specific production The Mill – City of Dreams (Bradford, Yorkshire), Testa di Rame (Festival Inequilibrio, Italy) and Les P’tites Grandes Choses (Maison de Arts du Cirque et du Clown, France).

Rhys Jarman (Designer) previously designed the set for MONEY: The Game Show at the Bush Theatre. He was one of the winners of the 2007 Linbury Biennial Prize, for his design of Varjak Paw for the Opera Group. Further stage design credits include James and the Giant Peach and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Northern Stage), The Time of Your Life(Gecko/ Battersea Arts Centre/ BBC), The Dreamer (Gecko/ Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre), The Machine Stops (Pilot Theatre/ York Theatre Royal),Hurling Rubble at the Sun, Hurling Rubble at the Moon (Red Ladder Theatre Company/ Park Theatre), Institute and Missing (both Gecko/ World Tours), The Nutcracker (Nuffield Theatre), Holes (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/ Arcola Theatre) and Three Way (Edinburgh Festival Fringe). Forthcoming work includes Alice in Wonderland (Northern Stage), How I Hacked My Way to Space (Unlimited Theatre) and The Wedding (Gecko). He also designs work for outdoor events, opera and television.

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